Stuff Made Here
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2021–2022
14:40 · 14M views · May 31, 2021
Engineer Stuff Made Here builds two new supposedly unpickable locks with different designs and sends them to the Lock Picking Lawyer to see whether they can be defeated. The video covers the novel anti-picking mechanisms.
HN people recommend it, along with the Lock Picking Lawyer's response, as an engaging look at lock design and how clever mechanisms get bypassed.
4 comments from Hacker News
Since this has generated some discussion on locks and picking, there's been some interesting developments on "unpickable locks" that sidestep the tolerance problem by decoupling setting the pins from testing them. I.e. pins are tested all at once after they are physically decoupled from the key & keyway, eliminating state space reduction attacks (aka picking one pin at a time) leaving only brute force. One such effort features locks made by Stuff Made Here sent to Lock Picking Lawyer. According to LPL the locks are theoretically sound and he did not attempt to pick them, but these particular implementations had a couple (easily fixable) bypasses. Made for interesting videos on both sides: Stuff Made Here describes the design in detail: TWO Unpickable (?) Locks for Lock Picking Lawyer! - this video Lock Picking Lawyer reviews them and performs some bypasses: [1299] Unpickable Locks From Stuff Made Here - [LINK]
On the topic of "novel, non-pin-tumbler mechanisms": I can recommend the videos by Stuff Made Here [1][2], where he designs two novel anti-picking lock mechanisms, and the related video [3] where LockPickingLawyer tries to pick and bypass them. Together they give a whole new understanding of lock design and picking methods. [1] [LINK] [2] this video [3] [LINK]
This looks very similar to the design[0] by Stuff Made Here (and collaborative hardening [1] suggestions by Lock Picking Lawyer)…an excellent set of videos. this video [LINK]
are you perhaps talking about the forever lock? [LINK] while difficult, it can be undone ----- making a one-off "unpickable" lock is possible, here is some to-and fro between two youtube channels about such locks: Stuff Made Here: [LINK] this video Lock Picking Lawyer: [LINK] But things from installation issues, to making sure tolerances are maintained while making the locks on a production line, mean that there are always some gaps left in a mass produced and installed lock.